


fleet-footed (down that distant path)

by edensgrief



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, 半妖の夜叉姫 | Hanyou no Yashahime | Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon (Anime)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Dom/sub Undertones, Earn Your Happy Ending, F/M, Fairytale Vibes, Gen, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Mild Gore, Older Man/Younger Woman, Past Child Abuse, Pseudo-History, Reincarnation, Slow Burn, Sorry guys, gratuitous amount of purple prose, lil bit of horror, tho the smut is surprisingly vanilla
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:54:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28260468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edensgrief/pseuds/edensgrief
Summary: The year is 1863. Japan has entered a state of unprecedented turmoil.In the midst of it all, a girl with no future finds herself increasingly entangled with a past that does not belong to her. Or so she thinks.All the while, she must contend with the echoes of a great white hound who seems to haunt her footsteps at every turn.*aka the author reads too much Angela Carter and absconds w/ copious amounts of Japanese folklore/history.**tags will be updated as needed.*
Relationships: Rin/Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 40





	1. prologue: grief

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends! Thank you for checking out my little indulgence project. Chapters will be slightly longer than drabble-sized. Author has a wandering mind.
> 
> In light of the new sequel ( and the depressing scramble of antis clamouring to rise) I've decided to actually write this little project.
> 
> I've had this idea for about half a decade so I'm glad to get it out on paper ( so to speak - hah!).
> 
> This is OG canon compliant. However, it is also a historical fiction + folklore/fantasy piece so if large amounts of history-nerd context facts ain't your thing, here be ye dragons. I'll try and make this story as historically accurate as possible!
> 
> Sporadic updates! Sorry!
> 
> If anything about the story ( folklore, history, smut etc.) catches your interest and you'd like to chit-chat, please send me a message!
> 
> \- Much love, Eden

Upon the precipice stood a beast, wrapped in the shape of a god. Haloed in silver, he stands, proud, solemn, melding with the ice-covered landscape.

He is here to grieve, just for a heartbeat. (Or so he promises himself, demanding the obedience of will over heart.)

A creature, green, scrambles up behind him. He hesitates before creeping forward.

" Is it done, milord? Has she gone?" he whispers timidly, voice trembling.

For a moment, it seems the other deigns not to reply, choosing instead to gaze out at the vast expanse ahead.

And when he speaks, his words are colder than the storm around them.

" Whether or not she returns to me is her choice. This Sesshoumaru is not a god." Here, he pauses, gaze caught by the swaying of a single, solitary petal, clinging, miraculously, to a bare branch in the dead of winter.

The creature falls silent, bowing his head; whether in tears or in respect, his master does not care.

He is so _tired_ , so bone-weary after it all.

And so, he leaves.

But before turning away, he cannot help but pluck the last petal from its branch, trapping it tenderly between sharp claws and tucking it into his sleeve.

"I can no longer interfere," he murmurs, so softly, not even the winds could promise to bear witness to his words. Behind him, the howling of the snow picks up.


	2. upheaval

His empire is burning.

* * *

It began with the rising of men; men with their swords, men on their horses, riding with their hounds, gathering their kinsmen. Then came the slow rise of towns, and then cities. From cities to empires, there rushed in their so-called heroes, mortals with power and greed shining gold in their eyes. Following them came the whispers of soul-seeking, of glory and pilgrims with their heads bowed low. Humans are tenacious creatures, they live poorly and die with each turn of the leaf. And yet, within their walls, crowded, stacked one atop another, they upheld their families with some vain disregard for the natural world surrounding them. And they bred with astonishing speed.

These empires turned their heads towards the mountains, the hills, the forests that had stood sentinel for eons upon eons. Even the untethered vastness of the sea could not remain untainted for long in the face of such avariciousness, The humans ate through land with the hunger of some starved beast, leaving nothing but desecration in their wake; scattered bones and decay. 

Then, the pale men came again, bearing their weapons with fervour. Their priests followed, arms raised with hellish light and liquid that burnt like fire in their wake. The hordes of them smelled like iron, perpetually, a different sort of miasma that left its taint in the air; suspended, unnatural. They bartered and butchered their way inland. And the humans, the ones that had been there for so long, well, some of them, they dealt their hands, signing themselves over to the devils.

By the same stroke of time and fate, the humans started their own war. Fighting faction upon faction; flags streaming, flags torn, they rampaged through the countryside; raping, pillaging, nothing held sacred to them. Holy men threw down their beads, forced into the fight. The young and the old hid in their filthy little villages, desperate to avoid the advances of rogues and vagrants who had turned from so-called men of honour to thieves and degenerates.

* * *

Once, he had never paid mind to the coming and goings of men. After all, what is the span of a weed compared to the endurance of the moon? He had lived through the raising of mountains and the falling of empires - and through all of it, remained unchanged.

(( A small part of him remembers, however, the tender rasp of a petal against his cheek; a mortal smile unclouded, a sun. He locks that part of him away, burying the memories as he grieves, claws grasping at the silent scars wrapped around what's left of a heart. What use does grief serve against the raging of the world?))

But that was eons ago, before his own entanglement, and before the passing of time hounded at his heels, snapping its jaws.

* * *

When the pale men had first arrived on their strange little ships, he had viewed them with mild curiosity. They were peculiar creatures with foreign ideas and foreign words rolling unnaturally on their tongues. Their holy men, feeble and weak-willed they were, feared the vast expanse of wild terrain as they dreamt of going back to their old homes of old stone on gentle, rolling landscapes. Japan, land of a rising sun, unconquered in its glory and untamed in its majesty, held ancient powers; ones far older than their god. And they felt the foreignness around them, seductive, heady, and so very dangerous against their poor senses.

He had thought himself quite entertained by them, and for a time, he walked amongst them, unseen, stirring up their anxieties with each breath. The poor creatures squirmed in fear for they, even with their minute power, had sensed the presence of greatness and of unholiness in their midst. And so, when the human powers held them off, pushing them near the coast, and eventually off the island, he grew amused. Human against human, man against man, native against foreign; such futile, enduring struggles.

But now, they came back, with a vengeance that consumed the island, leaving a trail destruction in its wake. He became the lore of the old, the last lynchpin holding back disaster. And when the wave finally struck, not even he could withstand its force.

\-----

In ignorance, he had underestimated them before. He cannot do so now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can tell, the first two chapters are from our dear Sesshoumaru's perspective. I've tried to make his thoughts as ~poetic~ as possible ( aristocratic assassin indeed!) so please bear with his flourish-y thoughts + the worldbuilding. Rin will be arriving shortly ;) but please also mind the slow-burn tag.
> 
> Also, I want to point out that my intention with this story is NOT to bash Christianity/"foreigners". I've tried to keep this perspective as close as I'd assume for Sesshoumaru's reactions to the course of such history. ( If you don't agree, you can either a) turn away ( here be dragons!) or b) fight me, I'm sorta Catholic; I know my history.) 
> 
> Also, he's a freakin' demon, people. If I were a Catholic missionary in 1500's Japan and I ran into a sexy-ass demon like him, I'd probably a) convert to paganism on the spot, or b) try to exorcise him for tempting me. ;)
> 
> \- Much love, Eden.


	3. omens

There came whispers into the town, riding along the wave of suspicion and grief left in the wake of the war. Tales of a tall stranger, shining pale silver on moonless nights, and of a monstrous beast, with gaping maw and demon-red eyes, echoed through the mouths of the townsfolk, gathering, shifting, morphing from truth to truth. To walk through the dark forests and the mountain paths at night meant certain death, for only the most tenacious of them could stalwartly pick their way through the merciless terrain.

And now, there was a beast hunting them. 

"Haven't we suffered enough?" grumbled the words of the community elders. " No strong men left and the rest of us starving, our tributes fully given. What other misfortune must we endure? What comes with such weight to our island?"

Some said the stranger must be a god, sent from the heavens as punishment for the government's war, a vile affair that sought to pit brothers against brothers. Others, desperate for a modicum of rationality, reckoned that the stranger must be a foreigner; with his long pale hair, dressed fearsomely in black.

And what of the beast? No-one could say for certain, save for hushed whispers of the stories of yore, when gods and demons had once roamed in their midst. 

* * *

The children of the village, naturally, paid the elders no mind, screaming with glee and mock horror. They pranced around with sticks, imitating the ways of their predecessors. " It must be a demon!" they jeered, swept up in revelry. " Surely, demons would love to plague our little town. What will the demons steal from us? A pound of soybeans, two of rice?"

The older children, brash and unruly without control, sneered with cruelty, for they too had been raised on fear in the absence of their fathers. " Maybe it comes to take the girls, and good riddance too. We've only the ugly ones left."

In the corner of the village, a girl-child, on the cusp of woman-hood, stood still, wrapped in a rust-red cloak, as she watched those of her age run through the streets. They wrought havoc, tearing down coverings and ripping open doors, a pack of imps at the spoils. Sharp-eyed and nimble of hand, the girl-child patiently waited until they left, darting by storage houses and gathering up the loose grain that had been spilt out in their wake. Fleet-footed she was, with eyes as ancient as the land itself.

She was called the daughter of the whore, the daughter of the bitch. Child of dog-binders, born with no voice in her throat but the whimper of a pup and the howl of a ghost.

Strangely enough, her mother had named her "Rin," a "companion," as if mocking her, for the girl thought herself destined for a life of solitude.

The day of her birth had been strange and worrying to the townspeople. Some said that they heard her howling from the womb. Others claimed that the birth happened in deadened silence, more graveyard than birthing chamber. Still, one thing was certain; the day of her birth brought a horde of dogs rushing into the village. From near and far, they streamed into the village and sat outside their door, a pack of sentinels.

"Cursed. Leave her before she binds herself to the town, parasite she is" muttered the elders to themselves as they heard the aftermath of the birth; they held incense and whispered prayers under their breath. And yet, they held their tongue in the presence of the mother, fearing her wrath, for she and hers had once held the power of the land incarnated in the form of a great dog.

But her mother is long gone, her father, dead.

She is alone, stray she is, roaming without a pack.

* * *

Woodsmoke had hung heavy in the air the day the first death arrived. At its heels came the sounds of irate villagers, who, in their fear, grew more and more desperate in their search for a scapegoat. Their existence was not a kind one, reliant much on the whims of the seasons and the turning of the land. A death, so early and precariously driven in a season, meant great misfortune in the eyes of the elders.

It was a small village that she found herself born into. Poor and closely knit, the community shunned her mother, for her mother had been an outsider despite being born into the village; a stranger with mistrustful eyes and a penchant for the most peculiar of mischief. She was allowed to stay only due to her position of midwife, one who had miraculous instincts, and due to renown she brought to their village as a dye-maker, an alchemist of colour. 

And yet, hers was a cursed bloodline.

And so now, when ill omens, borne in the shape of a dog, came to their village, they assumed Rin was to blame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, the plot slowly reveals itself! 
> 
> A couple of things of note:
> 
> I am drawing upon a LOT of various Japanese folklore sources for this story. If it's not obvious yet, I'll be incorporating Inugami lore throughout. The Rin of this tale comes from an inumochi line - one who supposedly held an Inugami at one point. Inugami were frequently passed down through bloodlines. ;) Take of it what you will. 
> 
> There is a second major piece of folklore that I will be using. I shan't reveal it quite yet, for fear of spoilers, but the location of the story is important; I've tried to take real life regional mythos into consideration. 
> 
> \- Much love, Eden


	4. exile

For the last time, the pale men attacked, swarming in from the Western coast. They arrived inland with iron ablaze with light. However, this time, their numbers were many, with hordes that stretched along the coast like ants to a carcass. Their holy men were grimmer, darker, with fervour blazing through their bodies. Like puppets, they danced to some unknown command, blindly obedient to their cause. These zealots brought weapons of great sundering, wreaking terror and havoc as they threw their foreign prayers into the wind. Contrary to their belief, their mumbled psalms and murmurs of salvation did nothing towards the native beings of the island.

Their iron, however, like any other weapon, hurt. Their iron burned, shattering innards and tearing flesh with the proficiency of a butcher. The poisoning that came after was worse, splintering into bloodstreams with the same invasive tenacity as their creators. Thus, they tore into the country; men at arms fighting men, zealots at arms fighting demons.

What remained of the demons in that era, ran, trying desperately to escape the persecution that hounded them. They streamed out into the country. Cruel and kind beings alike, they feared the searing pain brought upon them. Like some of the demons before them, they taught themselves to hide their power and thoughts, and forced themselves into the skins of humans, learning to walk upright in hopes of blending in. They gathered their families and in time, bred with the humans, leaving behind a past tinged with just the lightest of power. Others, those who were mighty and those unable to adapt, eschewing submission, turned around, facing the sea again. They perished.

After all they were demons. No matter from what land, what is holy is perceived unknown to them. That has always been the law unto this realm.

* * *

Somehow, they had found him.

Breaking down his barriers and murdering their way through his land, their army arrived at his fortress, battle-ready. His stronghold, once majestic, standing proud against the sky, was now decrepit, wasting away at the neglect of its master, who had, after a death, once again deigned it unnecessary to dwell within its gates. The lacquered tiles of its tiered roofs grew dull with age. Only the garden, renowned for its simplicity, remained pristine. The fortress itself, many-roomed and filled with the rare and beautiful, strange delights once brought in for their mistress, was once filled with laughter and joy. And for a time, its master was content and chose to spend his days behind its walls. Those days were of the past, long gone. And yet, it became the last one standing. A symbol, perhaps, of a legacy doomed to fall.

And now, at his gates, the army gave their warning, as if they were men of honour and not parasites encroaching on a land not of their own. They marched towards the fortress, unending line upon unending land. The land split before them.

Their leader, garbed in the strange garments of their men, approached.

"'Lord of the West' they call you, last stronghold of the unholy, leader of monsters," he declared. " Surrender and die at our command, or you and your creatures shall suffer without end."

Sesshoumaru said nothing, choosing to gaze out coolly into the expanse of glittering metal. He knew that words were to be wasted upon these savages, with no honour, no grace. Thus, he chose silence.

What remained of his own troops gathered beneath him, coiled, silent, like the body of a predator wound up to spring. No longer a spring pup at his first tussle, he stood, instead, a weary sentinel, watching for weakness amidst his enemy's ranks.

He found none.

They attacked; smoke and iron filled the air. With no barrier, their advancement broke through his gates with ease, sending a hail of metal his way.

Sesshoumaru struck, again and again, sword tearing their ranks asunder as his whip flashed in the air. They scattered, yes, but like cockroaches at a spoil, they were blind with hunger. When one died another immediately stepped into the dead's place. 

He shifted into the form of a great white dog, and for a moment, it seemed like there was hope. With his jaws unhinged, and unearthly howls echoing through the air; he was a nightmare come to life. The demon army beneath him cheered, rejuvenated by his fury.

But the tide shifted again. The humans were unyielding, self-sacrificing in their struggle. They melted under his poison and bathed his land in a wave of red. 

And they kept coming.

His troops fought valiantly, standing their ground against an undiscriminating horde. But they were outnumbered, surrounded by guns and poison.

And they died by the mass. Even with the great dog demon by their side.

In the chaos, the foreigners swept through. Sesshoumaru lunged, jaws open; more hellhound than demon. Driven by the last dregs of rage, he tried to stand his ground.

But even he could not stand against the barrage of cannons that followed the army. They struck him; his mass, an easy target. And soon, his coat ran red; his thick pelt weighed down by his own blood as the metal shards pierced him.

He had thought to die there. A valiant death.

After all, what is a ruler without a kingdom to rule? What use is power without those in need of protection? What more was there to live for? 

In spite of it all, in what he thought would be his last moments, he thought of his father.

He had saw his father akin to a god, once. As a child, watching his father leave, over and over again, he had thought him valiant and powerful, undefeatable.

And then he grew up, and sought to see him as merely a demon, a fool, a failure of husband who fell in love with a human.

He remembered that night; the bitter sea-song of waves against an empty shoreline, void of all except them, standing against the empty horizon of night.

 _"Tell me,_ _Sesshoumaru_ _... Have you someone to protect?"_ his father had asked. And Sesshoumaru had stood there, staring at the broad expanse of his father's back, thinking, _vowing_ that he would _never_ make the same mistake; _never_ fall in love, nor give his life up for another. _Such trifles; foolish things to hold dear in the face of power._

But weathered in time, all things fall apart.

Even vows.

And now, in the face of death itself, he understood.

_Father would have wanted me to live; I still have someone to protect. This is not where I will die._

* * *

And so in shame and grief, he fled, into exile and out of existence, back to the most ancient of his strongholds; an island, once bare and bereft of all humanity. Mortals crept in every so often, following the tracks of prey, but they were always wary in his land, as if able to sense the presence of some otherness there. He let them live and forgave their trespasses, so long as they kept the peace. The foreigners had not yet sunk their claws there.

It was a clean land and for the eons before, a place where his predecessors had held their power. And for this, the land remembered and gave thanks. Thus, the ancient wellspring of power held true, resisting all but the staunchest of influences. The mountains loomed tall over the coasts and the forests grew lush. The valleys echoed with hidden song, still holding on to the old ways. 

In time, the island's human population had grew. Humans, with irony woven into their bones and a persistence to rival the greatest plague, slithered into his home. Those huts became towns, and towns into little villages.

And for some forsaken reason, he allowed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen - when I said this story would be slow burn, I _meant_ it. He is Rin-ward bound at this point so ....
> 
> Rin next chapter. Don't worry, they're both " on the island now." 
> 
> \- Much love, Eden


	5. unease

An air of tension and fear had hung in the valley for a score of days. A _force_ had entered the land and not even the humans were free from its reckoning.

On that particular day, a dark gloom had fell heavy onto the village. The day had passed but no light had broken through the billowing grey of the clouds above. The valley seemed to be enveloped in some strange shadow and when nightfall came, it struck like a hammer-blow.

Up in the mountains, Rin, wrapped in her cloak of red, felt a deep sense of foreboding settle into her bones, sending pounding nausea echoing through her. _Something wasn't right_. Her eyes darted around the clearing. She peered through the trees, eyes straining to catch even the faintest of movement in the dense undergrowth. She dug her fingers into the clay below for some desperate modicum of control, momentarily caught like prey in the presence of a predator.

There was _nothing_.

Well, nothing that _she_ could perceive.

The wind picked up behind her, lifting her hair in tangles of black. The trees rustled; whispers of some long-forgotten language seemed to fill the grove in hushed chants. And for the first time in her life, in the woods, her hearth away from home, she felt as if she were a trespasser caught in the throes of some foreign ritual. She bore witness to this all, wringing her red-stained fingers in wariness. The weight of some unknown force bore down on her with intensity. And for some perverse reason, a _strange_ familiarity seemed to fill her.

There was something _watching_ her; of that, she was certain.

Suddenly, fearful shouts rang out through the valley from the village below. Watching the lanterns light up one by one down below, she gathered up her ochre into the straw-woven basket beside her and darted downhill. Her footsteps were steady against the rhythm of the earth below. 

The night was settling in.

Rin never did like the dark.

* * *

Arriving on the outskirts of the village, she had watched them carry in a long-dead body, wrapped in roughly woven cloth. The line of men stunk with fear. The villagers shrunk away from the morbid procession, muttering amongst themselves and spitting prayers.

"This land is cursed," muttered a village elder standing close, bent low with age. As her clouded eyes traced the crowd, she backed away on slow feet. "What comes to us in these dark times is not for us mortals to comprehend."

With a twist of her head, the elder's eye caught Rin's gaze, sudden and eagle-sharp. She beckoned towards her.

"Best you leave here, little sparrow," she warned. "They'll come after you next, marked you are, and you shall not find mercy here." Looking at the red-clad girl child, the wrinkled lines of her expression softened by a fraction; her gnarled fingers twisted the ties of her robe anxiously, caught by some wayward thought. "We all have a role to play in this," At this, there was an odd glint in the old woman's eyes. "You best try and escape your fate - you and all that hounds you."

The elder's words sent a sudden jolt of blind panic racing through her. It felt like a blow had been rained down upon her. Rin had never felt like a _villager_ ; she knew she had no true place amidst them. But the village was all she had ever known; not a home, but full of the fragile comfort that came with familiarity. _Cheap premonitions, that's all they are_ , she reassured herself, yet fearing the words of the elder all the same. Regardless of the truth, she wanted _nothing_ to do with _any_ ominous warnings.

And so she hid, cramming herself in the narrow space between two houses. She carefully drew her rust-red cloak around her shoulders, smoothing the fabric until she all but vanished into the space. She watched with waiting eyes. Her heart hammered horribly against her throat. The nausea came back. _Something was about to happen_.

Then, the world went mad.

It began with a small stray dog darting through the crowds in search of a kind hand. Small and spotted, Rin knew that pup well and thought her a sweet, loyal little thing. But the mongrel caught wind of the body and seized up, suddenly, as if caught by some invisible hand. An unearthly sound tore from its throat.

Soon, the lunacy spread. In a queer way, one by one, the dogs of the village were possessed by the the same force; the strays, the pets, and those who belonged to the lord; all those who had so endeared themselves to Rin, were driven to a frenzy by the body. Some threw themselves upon the ground while others leapt through the air, as if they had thought themselves crows instead of four-legged beasts. They snapped and snarled at one another, sending villagers running for torches and tools, for fear of whatever possession had taken hold of the dogs.

The headmaster's hunting hounds, a pair of fine-furred beasts who had grown fat on the spoils of their hunt, tore into the covered body with lust in their eyes while the strays of the village pranced around in their madness, pulling at the shroud and sending the body crashing to the ground.

The man had died some days before and the remains of the corpse were _vile_. The body, or what remained of it, had been torn asunder; a bloody ribcage here, a grotesque leg there, all these separate pieces came tumbling out, a dance of flesh and gore. The skull had been crushed by some great weight, its bone white cup glistening with moist matter. Blood splattered the ground in wet puddles, gleaming near-black in torchlight.

In a matter of moments, hysteria now hung over the village, a curtain of fear-tinged madness that whipped the people into a frenzy. The village broke out in terror. The men, with torches and tools in hand, yelled themselves hoarse, splashing through puddles of blood as they stumbled about, clutching their makeshift weapons.

The dogs answered these shouts in return; the howling wrung from their canine throats did not sound like anything that should have existed on this mortal coil. And soon enough, the winds picked up the sound, sending the wretched song echoing through the valley until it seemed as if the forest itself shook from the force of it.

Rin held herself stone-still in the narrow chasm and watched the chaos with fear in her eyes, pressing down the breath in her throat for fear of making sound.

This wasn't _normal_ ; she knew each and every one of these dogs. This wasn't _them_.

And the men; they were frightening to the young girl-child. She, who had never belonged, had found herself the subject of beatings many a time. And she knew all too well the cruelty of fists and fire.

The dogs continued their assault. Some ripped into the body, devouring mouthful upon mouthful of rotting flesh. Others, in their madness, rolled their eyes and bared their teeth in red-stained smiles, lunging towards the men as if daring them to attack.

For the most part, the mob stayed back. Some brave souls found themselves halfheartedly thrusting their pitchforks forward in an attempt to chase the curs off, with no success.

But with time, the men gathered themselves up at the demands of the village leaders, and lined up like a row of toy soldiers. They stunk of fearful aggression and when organized, they advanced, intent on slaying every furry beast in sight. Hoarse yells rolled through the air like peals of thunder.

Rin, unable to watch the slaughter of her beloved companions, ones who had curled up next to her on those dark winter nights, sprung out of the crowd with some unknown ferocity. She darted through the mob on quick feet, slamming elbows against bodies and sending the ranks of men scattering. Slamming the soles of her feet against the earth, she crouched low to the earth, spreading her arms out in front of the pack. Her ochre-stained fingers gleamed red in the dying light, as if crusted with blood.

She lunged at them threateningly, heart thundering from the fear threatening to spill out. For a moment, the villagers backed away in fear, watching the little orphan girl become something _else_ right before their eyes. Baring her teeth, a wordless snarl wretched itself from her hoarse throat. She was _feral_ , more dog than girl-child.

But soon, the anger of the mob turned to her, and with murderous intent echoing black in their faces, shaded by the dying firelight, the men looked unholy - punishers out for a hunt with hellfire raised in wrathful hand. They shook their fists in anger. 

If Rin, in all her years, knew one thing to be true, it would be this: the ways of men are fickle and cruel. And so, when they turned to her with rage glinting in the beady-black of their darkened eyes, she knew exactly what kind of trouble lay in wait for her.

But despite her fear, she knew she could not back down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we all know the identity of the suspicious watcher in the wood, right? 👀 Consider this our OTP's first "informal" meeting in this verse. 
> 
> I really wasn't planning on this story to be _that_ much of a slow-burn. Oops. Sesshoumaru's POV is next.
> 
> I also _swear_ << it was one kingdom, once>> will update soon. ((I'm a liar and got caught up w/ a bunch of stuff. ^^; The good news is that I have -like- 3 more SessRin ideas in the works. Bad news- I'm always going to be a slow writer. Heh. ))
> 
> Also - tags have been updated!
> 
> Until next time!  
> \- Much love, Eden


End file.
